Attorneys are urging industry groups to more closely track and engage with environmentalists' litigation under the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), saying initial suits could set important precedents that will determine how the new law is ultimately implemented.
The Abrasive Blasting Manufacturers Alliance (ABMA), a group seeking to scale back the Obama OSHA's strict beryllium standard, is pushing to subject competitors whose products rely on non-slag alternatives to the rule's protections, releasing a study that claims that crushed glass abrasives that competitors use contain beryllium and are thus subject to the standard.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer's (D-NY) recent call for OSHA to establish a system to notify first responders when a local company is cited for serious violations involving flammable materials is drawing criticism from both labor and industry officials who are raising doubts about its effectiveness in increasing safety.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) has postponed until next week a scheduled Jan. 11 vote to consider several Labor Department nominees, including Scott Mugno, the Trump administration's nominee to lead OSHA.
The number of OSHA inspectors has declined by 4 percent since President Donald Trump has taken office, according to a NBC News Report, raising concerns from a former Obama official and labor advocates that declining agency resources are harming workplace safety and fear the trend will continue despite the administration ending a hiring freeze on new inspectors.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is urging OSHA to “maximize” and expand its Obama-era injury reporting requirements to collect more information on injured employees and develop a publicly available and searchable injury and illness database, raising a potential hurdle to Trump administration efforts to roll back the rule.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) is urging Scott Mugno, the Trump administration's pick to lead OSHA, and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, to establish a system to notify local governments and first responders when a local company is cited for serious OSHA violations, a call that could set the bar for Mugno's pending confirmation.
The Labor Department (DOL) is renewing claims that the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act grants OSHA power to cite so-called “controlling employers” for violations affecting another company's workers, even as it rejects industry claims that it should not be entitled to deference when interpreting vague statutory provisions.
The Trump administration is touting an increase in OSHA inspections in fiscal year 2017, the first uptick since 2012, despite a former Obama OSHA official's claims that declining agency resources are harming workplace safety, a trend the official expects to continue despite the Trump Labor Department's (DOL) lifting a freeze on hiring inspectors.
A divided appellate panel has ordered EPA to propose updates to its 2001 lead dust hazard standard within 90 days, and take final action no later than a year after that, backing environmentalists' calls for a revised standard, which could prompt greater protections for workers conducting renovation and repair work in buildings with lead based paint.
A former Obama OSHA official and labor groups are faulting the Trump administration's rationale in its fall regulatory plan for scaling back the agency's May 2016 worker injury and illness reporting rule, calling the reasoning “suspicious,” and arguing the Trump Labor Department (DOL) is reaching for ways to undercut rules based on broad public input.
Construction industry groups are charging that OSHA has taken “an erroneous view” of the Chevron legal doctrine that grants agencies deference to interpret vague statutes, and suggesting the case -- in which the agency is seeking to preserve its enforcement authority -- could tee up Supreme Court review of whether such deference is consistent with federal law.
A construction company is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to uphold an Administrative Law Judge's (ALJ) ruling curtailing OSHA’s multi-employer enforcement policy, arguing in its response brief that the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act and the court's precedents do not support liability for so-called controlling employers.
State regulators are backing a key argument in environmentalists’ lawsuit challenging Trump EPA rules for reviewing existing chemicals under the revised toxics law, telling EPA in comments it must address all chemical uses, including those blamed for harms to workers, when assessing chemicals' risks for possible future regulation.
Top Democrats are warning that a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) who recently joined a majority decision to reverse the board's Obama-era ruling that expanded OSHA enforcement by broadening the definition of a “joint employer” had a potential conflict of interest, signaling a continuing challenge to the decision.
An industry attorney says that a recent OSHA settlement with a New York recycling company resolving violations of the agency's bloodborne pathogens standard suggests the agency is expanding its interpretation of the standard despite the Trump OSHA's shelving Obama-era plans for a rule bolstering protections against the risk.
An industry attorney expects that the Trump EPA's proposed rule revising the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program with new requirements will completely undercut the already-delayed Obama-era rule, restoring the prior standard and realigning RMP with OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM) rule.
Rejecting a set of industry challenges, a federal appellate court has largely upheld the Obama OSHA's March 2016 final rule updating limits for exposure to silica for the first time in more than 40 years, though the court granted unions' request to remand a portion of the rule to strengthen provisions governing already-exposed workers.
A just-announced settlement agreement between OSHA and a Kansas grain company underscores Trump administration efforts to ease enforcement and encourage compliance, an industry source says, after the agency agreed to reduce its classifications of the company's citations and accept lesser penalties.
A federal appellate court has reversed an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that subjected a New York aggregates company to Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rules, backing the Obama Labor Department's (DOL) determination that OSHA has authority over such milling plants.